Forum Activity for @strumelia

I hear there are tens of dollars to be made in dulcimer magazines and websites.

My experience with the dulcimer community on this website is a very altruistic desire to share information and music. So many on here have taken quite a lot of time out of their day to write long posts to help me or someone else or folks in general with understanding and appreciating the dulcimer, and I'm really grateful for that. At the end of the day I know that all the help I've gotten is proof that dulcimer people love helping and sharing with others, so I know they will always find a way to do it

I'm pretty sure she explored every avenue before deciding to close the doors.  Things today aren't what they were when DPN started as a mimeographed newsletter all those years ago.  Today you need not just writing/editing skills but serious computer saavy.  The costs of printing small run publications, especially in the color with the quality we expect today have gone out of sight and subscribers are dropping off as the popularity of electronic media has risen, and the remaining subscribers are less and less willing to pay the costs of production, honoraria for writers, and something approaching compensation for the editor.  

The other issue is that a magazine needs in-depth quality material to print, and fewer people these days are doing so.  People today seemingly would rather start random "sound bite" discussions on the plethora of dulcimer social media sites.  

DPN might... just might... survive as a sort of subscription-based "contributory blog" -- an electronic magazine.  Think of a website, similar to FOTMD, where you would pay a monthly or annual fee to read articles, watch short videos, and see photos, but not comment on them except for a thousand words  per month (like a letter to the editor).   There are already a number of scholarly journals operating on this basis -- JSTOR and Academia.edu come to mind immediately.  Subscribers would receive notification emails whenever a certain amount of new material was published.  Articles could be read on line or perhaps downloaded for personal use only.

Folks who have interesting things to report about the dulcimer, its use, history, etc, etc.  would upload articles with illustrations/photos or video clips (all in appropriate electronic formats) to the editor.  The editor would do his/her editorial magic and upload the articles to a website where subscribing readers can access them.  Contributors would get paid via Papal or Zelle.  There would be paid advertisements interspersed with the articles.

Here again, the question remains whether there would be sufficient interest -- advertisements and people willing to pay a monthly/annual subscription fee -- to support someone doing all that writing, editing, and electronic manipulation, plus support the massive bandwidth and computer resources, etc.  

Sad news.  I hope his family knows how wide Gary's influence was and how many musical souls he touched.

This is indeed sad news. I'm wishing comfort for his family.

The dulcimer community has lost another great one. My sympathies are extended to the family and loved ones of Gary Sager.

Though I knew Gary was ill, the news of his death still came to me as a bit of a shock.  It was a long-ago visit to Gary & Toni's shop which got me thinking about taking up mountain dulcimer-- and as it happened, Gary & Toni weren't even there that day yet the instruments were and someone else was minding the store.  Gary was a great guy, a wonderful luthier, and a really good musician.  My heart is with Toni and the Sager family.      

That is sad news................I appreciate you posting that and I will surely remember his family and all those grieving his loss. 

It is with a sad heart that I share the news that Gary Sager of Prussia Valley dulcimers died this afternoon, March 15, 2023. Gary was an experienced dulcimer maker and an enthusiastic promoter of the mountain dulcimer. I first met Gary and Dave Lynch at the same time at a Harmony Harvest festival in Lancaster, OH. Gary was generous in sharing advice about building and playing dulcimers. He will be missed by all who knew him or shopped at the Prussia Valley Music Store or website.

My sympathy goes out to his wife, Toni, and the rest of Gary's family. 

Rest in peace Gary.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

I wonder if Ashley tried selling DPN to someone who would continue its publication?

In my conversation with Ashley she indicated she would keep up the events calendar and maybe the club list, but I don't think she was interested in maintaining a digital newsletter. I guess if that is a need for the dulcimer community someone will develop it.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Nate -- there is always the "archive" on issuu.com -- see the link a couple posts below here....

@nate Ashley Ernst has indicated there will still be an online presence of some kind for DPN even after the print editions cease.   

I am not a regular reader, but I've pulled up a TON of random articles over time. Sorry is this question is out of the loop, but will there be any type of replacement, maybe a less frequent digital newsletter or something more manageable?  It's a real bummer though, for someone like me who isnt really connected to the culture of dulcimer playing, DPN regularly exposed me to ideas I'd never have even known to look for, including techniques, historical information, etc.

Hey Ken, I thought the instrument was super interesting, especially how the traditional ones have handles on the front, so you can basically hold it like a plane yoke while you play. My next one will too. The one I built has the saddle sitting on two coffee cans in a plywood box. I sort of just winged it, didn't really measure anything or use plans or whatnot. Intending to build another one now that I know what to expect.

Janita.

Ken, who was the geology major, Bob or Janita? 

Interesting instrument. IIRC there were several biblical era lyres which used a skin drum as the resonator chamber.  Can't really see what you've built, from that vid.  Had to go looking.  

I found Dennis Havlena's how-to article which, like most of his other homemade instrument DIYs is pretty comprehensive.... Is that what you used to build from?

Haha! Thats why some guy invented the harmonica holder ! 

Then there's me. I'm Un-bidexterous. Can't do anything with either hand

After reading the story from Janita, I have a vague recollection of her telling me that story. It was at one of the Shenandoah University dulcimer weeks that Maddie Mac Neal and Ralph Lee Smith organized. We were sharing our backgrounds and I asked how a geology major got involved in dulcimers. I had forgotten all about that until Silverstrings posted Janita's response.

Ken

"The dulcimer sing a sweet song."

Well the published story is better than any of those we just made up!  Thanks, @silverstrings, for reaching out to Janet.

Oh, @silverstrings , I just love this story and am so glad you pursued learning how Blue Lion Instruments came by their name!  Mark and I just finished playing together just a bit ago and I was playing a Blue Lion.  <3

https://youtube.com/shorts/Xl1pDlMtGbM?feature=share
The Gambian Kora is a really clever African harp. I think one would probably sound incredible with the dulcimer. Made one attempt and building one DIY style and still have no clue how to play it. Working on building a much nicer, louder, and prettier one using what I learned.

Janice Baker wrote back to me on how Blue Lion Instruments got its name. It is a beautiful story. It makes me love my dulcimer even more, if that is possible. 

There is a “children’s book” (I think it really is an adult book) called Lion and Blue by Robert Vavra and Fleur Cowles.  It is the story of a lion who falls in love with a blue butterfly; the butterfly flies away and he spend the rest of his life trying to find her again.  (The illustrations are absolutely gorgeous!).  He travels all over and various animals keep telling him to follow his dream and his heart and he will find happiness,  but finally, in the end, the now very old lion passes away without having found his blue butterfly.  You turn the page, and the lion is now a sunflower, and of course, the blue butterfly has landed on the flower.

It’s a beautiful story about following your heart and not giving up. 

So how this relates to Blue Lion?  We needed to file for a business license and had to come up with a name in short order.  We didn’t want to be Baker Dulcimers and we didn’t want something too cute or folksy.  Bob noticed this book on our bookshelf and said “What about Blue Lion?”.  We both like the color blue, and a blue lion sounded somewhat mythical and noble and it just seemed right at the time.  So that is what we chose.

Ben, that is a great story. I actually did have a blue tie-dyed t-shirt. We learned how to do our own tie-dye in home economics in the 1970’s. 

Well, there was this lion living in the states sometime during the late 60s.  He observed many of the hippie people during that time doing the ever popular Tie-Dye thing with their t-shirts and other pieces of clothing.  The lion liked what he saw and thought that it was pretty groovy.  However, belonging to a Pride of Lions Den, he didn't want to go too extreme as he thought the other lions might make fun of him.  So, in not going to extremes he ordered some blue dye and when it came he poured a bunch into a bathtub full of water and then dove in swimming to his heart's content. He got out of the tub covered in blue dye and just let it air dry so that he wouldn't lose the hue.  When Bob and Janita saw the Blue Lion in the local zoo, well, they pointed and said at the same time, "look, a blue lion"; they just couldn't believe their good luck and the rest is history.  

BTW Nate, I appreciate the fact that you are obviously using the site's search feature to pull up relevant and interesting discussions on topics you are interested in, rather than simply starting new and possibly redundant discussions.
This is one of the good things about a site that keeps older content easily accessible, as opposed to a FB type site where everything prior to the current week gets impossibly buried.

Good point Nate.

Another weird thing- If you play a lot, your fretting hand will actually be able to stretch more than your strumming/picking hand. Due to making stretching moves thousands of times to fret on fingerboards, while the strumming hand does not.
I've played stringed instruments for decades. Both my hands appear to be exactly the same size and length. But when i stretch my hands out to create the most distance between my thumb and pinky tip, and place my palms together, I see that my left/fretting hand can stretching over 1" more from thumb to pinky than my right hand. It's like the way a gymnast or dancer can perfect doing a split with longtime practice.

Dusty, I enjoyed your story about Blue Lion dulcimers. I love to create crazy stories, too. I decided to email Janita and ask her the question. If and when I get an answer, I will post it here. 

As many may know, Bob and Janita are busy people. Hopefully, I will get an answer.

I recently bought an Acoustic Jam Blue Lion dulcimer. Even though it is designed bigger for jam sessions, I actually use it for fingerpicking. With the larger body, the Acoustic Jam sounds quite magical when fingerpicked.

Wow I didnt realize how many of the folks here are left handed! It's neat to think about how both hands are doing tricky stuff and both need a lot of practice anyway. I feel that playing musical instruments has made me noticeably more ambidextrous over time and there are a ton of things I can do with my left hand that I definitely couldn't before I started practicing instruments. 

Thank you Staylor. It's my granddaughter and for better or worse, she's moved on to gymnastics. 

Thank you @strumelia for the useful details and thank you to everyone else for all the input in general. This has all helped me a lot to get a better perspective on the what's and why's

Nate

Apparently, Bob and Janita used to have a dog, a chow chow to be precise.  They and their hairy--dare I say maned--canine were in the nearby town of Morro Bay for the annual celebration of St. Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland, on November 30.  To celebrate this day the local residents of Scottish heritage had dumped a bunch of blue food coloring in the bay. Blue, after all, is the color of the Scottish flag, and supposedly ancient Scots warriors used to paint their bodies blue before they went into battle.

When Bob put the leash down to dig for some change in his pocket to offer a local street musician playing a cover of Joni Michell's "Blue," the chow chow bolted after a duck, chasing it into the bay.  By the time they got the dog out of the water, it was, well, blue.  Kind of.  Here is an untouched photo of the lion/dog:

OK.  So none of that's true. I made it all up.  Sorry. I have no idea either.

I like what Stumelia and Dusty write here. Dulcimer players often do not seem to care about the change in timbre when they tune strings to a different pitches (and thus different tensions). My experience is that longer strings have a warmer tone, due to the variety of undertones, as well as a different set of transient dissonance (which affects brilliance).

And what Dusty says about the player's fretting technique is important, if one is playing chords. I see many people reaching for chords with thumb and pinky. If one does that too often the thumb is liable to suffer, as it is not really structured well for fretting, which requires more lateral pressure. The hand and its members just are not built well to sustained lateral pressure.

In advising my clients about scale length I ask them to consider whether they do much chordal playing, then find the place on one of their dulcimers at which they are comfortable with forming the most demanding chord without using the thumb. Then I advise that they need a scale at which such a chord can be achieved over the first three to five diatonic frets.

Thanks for all your good advice.

I sold the dulcimer to a friend who knew more than I did about bridge placement. He's happily playing it. I still owe him a lesson....

Was the bridge originally glued, or did it simply fall off when string tension was lowered? If it was already glued it could be possible to see on the fingerboard where it was previously, based on color difference/glue residue.

Irene makes a very important point though. Its also been my experience that placing the bridge improperly is somewhat common, so be very careful that you find the absolute best spot for it before gluing, or maybe just see how it sounds unglued. It might be good!

A fixed bridge can be very convenient though.In the dulcimer group I used to play in, pretty much every time I tuned up a dulcimer I'd check the octave and I'd say over 20 cents off was the standard. Their problem, though, was that they had floating bridges and werent being careful while restringing. A little bump here and there can destroy intonation pretty fast.

A fixed bridge can be nice if you know exactly where you want it to be, but be careful, or you could end up making another one of the dulcimers irene describe. Especially, be careful if you do end up using a book or rock or something makeshift to clamp it while the glue dries. The smallest little shift to the bridge caused by applying the pressure at an angle could move the bridge slightly and could make a big difference in the intonation, and you wont know til the glue dries!

Nate

I have no idea, but I'm sure you could email Janita and ask her. Bob and Janita have building dulcimers since 1977. There must be a story behind the name.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Does anyone know how Blue Lion Instruments got its name?